Plaster-casts are very easily broken, and are heavy and difficult to transport. Wax is spoiled almost by a touch, and it readily yields to heat. Papier-maché, when properly managed, with a little practice gives a mould which is equal to either for all surfaces except the most minutely delicate. When dry, such casts may be let fall, or really thrown about, without sustaining any injury, and they are very portable. It is very often possible to easily copy an object with paper when plaster or wax cannot be used at all. The reason why it is not more generally used is because few persons have taken the pains to treat it as a plastic material suitable to the arts, or are sufficiently practised in it to know what can really be done with it. The wood-carver should do this, because it is a very important thing for him to keep copies of his works, or to get those of others to use in his designs. With a little practice, and at no expense, he can make such casts in a material which is almost as durable as wood itself.
In large manufactories of papier-maché the pulp of paper is simply mixed with the paste or size, and put into the moulds in large masses, and then subjected to pressure. When a good surface is secured with fine white paper, it is not of much consequence how coarse the paper for the _backing_ may be. For this purpose it may be mixed with tow or fibre of any kind, plaster, or fine sawdust, etc., so long as the _binder_ or size be only strong enough to hold all together. But for all ordinary purposes waste-paper and paste, thickened with common glue, will suffice.
[Illustration: CASE FOR PAPERS OR MUSIC.]
This is a manner of ornamenting which can hardly be called carving, and which would not deserve special mention were it not that it is so extensively used, it being the chief method of decoration in all the islands of the Pacific, and still extensively practised in Sweden and Norway. It consists of small incised triangles, or "diamonds," made with a skew or ordinary chisel, which are arranged in rows or lines. Simple as the work may seem, it is very effective when artistically employed; and it has this peculiarity, that no other kind of cutting is so well adapted, with very little labour, to relieve flat surfaces, such as paddles, tankards, spoons, war clubs, and scoops or dippers.